Great Galveston Hurricane (1900)
The Great Galveston Hurricane, known regionally as the Great Storm of 1900, was a Category 4 storm, with winds of up to 145 mph, which made landfall on September 8, 1900, in Galveston, Texas, in the United States. It killed 6,000 to 12,000 people, making it the deadliest hurricane and natural disaster in U.S. history. The hurricane appears to have started as an atmospheric trough from West Africa, causing unsettled weather in the Caribbean, and emerging into the Florida Straits as a tropical storm on September 5. Owing to contradictory forecasts, the people of Galveston felt no alarm until the official hurricane warning of September 7. The next morning, a storm surge of 15 ft washed over the long, flat island-city, which was only 8 ft above sea level, knocking buildings off their foundations and destroying over 3,600 homes. The disaster ended the Golden Era of Galveston, as the hurricane alarmed potential investors, who turned to Houston instead. The Gulf of Mexico shoreline of Galveston island was subsequently raised by 17 ft and a 10 mi seawall leveled. Deadliest US Hurricane The Hurricane of 1900 made landfall on September 8, 1900, in Galveston, Texas, in the United States. It had estimated winds of 145 miles per hour at landfall, making it a Category 4 storm on the Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale. It was the deadliest hurricane in US history, and the second costliest hurricane in U.S. history based on the dollar's 2005 value (to compare costs with those of Hurricane Katrina and others). The hurricane caused great loss of life with a death toll of between 6,000 and 12,000 people; the number most cited in official reports is 8,000, giving the storm the third-highest number of deaths or injuries of all Atlantic hurricanes, after the Great Hurricane of 1780 and 1998's Hurricane Mitch. The Galveston Hurricane of 1900 is one of the deadliest natural disasters ever to strike the United States. This loss of life can be attributed to the fact that officials for the Weather Bureau in Galveston brushed off the reports because the city had "weathered them all" and they didn't realize the threat. The second-deadliest storm to strike the United States, the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane, caused more than 2,500 deaths, and the deadliest storm of recent times, Hurricane Katrina, claimed the lives of approximately 1,800 people. The hurricane occurred before the practice of assigning official code names to tropical storms was instituted, and thus it is commonly referred to under a variety of descriptive names. Typical names for the storm include the Galveston Hurricane of 1900, the Great Galveston Hurricane, and, especially in older documents, the Galveston Flood. It is often referred to by Galveston locals as the Great Storm or the 1900 Storm. Meteorological History The storm's origins are unclear, because of the limited observational methods available to meteorologists at the time. Ship reports were the only reliable tool for observing hurricanes at sea, and because wireless telegraphy was in its infancy, these reports were not available until the ships put in at a harbor. The 1900 storm, like many powerful Atlantic hurricanes, is believed to have begun as a Cape Verde–type hurricane—a tropical wave moving off the western coast of Africa. The first formal sighting of the hurricane's precursor occurred on August 27, about 1,000 miles east of the Windward Islands, when a ship recorded an area of "unsettled weather". The storm passed through the Leeward Islands on August 30, probably as a tropical depression as indicated by barometric pressure reports from Antigua. Three days later, Antigua reported a severe thunderstorm passing over, followed by the hot, humid calmness that often occurs after the passage of a tropical cyclone. By September 1, U.S. Weather Bureau observers were reporting on a "storm of moderate intensity (not a hurricane)" southeast of Cuba. Continuing westward, the storm made landfall on southwest Cuba on September 3, dropping heavy rains. On September 5, it emerged into the Florida Straits as a tropical storm or a weak hurricane. The Weather Bureau ignored reports from Cuban meteorologists because they expected the storm to curve northeast along the coast of North America: "Assumption became fact as the official government reports stated, wrongly, that the storm was traveling northeast in the Atlantic." However, a region of high pressure had pushed the storm to the west into the Gulf of Mexico. The storm was reported to be north of Key West on September 6, and in the early morning hours of Friday, September 7, the Weather Bureau office in New Orleans, Louisiana, issued a report of heavy damage along the Louisiana and Mississippi coasts. Details of the storm were not widespread; damage to telegraph lines limited communication. The Weather Bureau's central office in Washington, D.C., ordered storm warnings raised from Pensacola, Florida, to Galveston. By the afternoon of September 7, large swells from the southeast were observed on the Gulf, and clouds at all altitudes began moving in from the northeast. Both of these observations are consistent with a hurricane approaching from the east. The Galveston Weather Bureau office raised its double square flags; a hurricane warning was in effect. The ship Louisiana encountered the hurricane at 1 p.m. that day after departing New Orleans. Captain Halsey estimated wind speeds of 100 mph. These winds correspond to a Category 2 hurricane in the modern-day Saffir–Simpson Hurricane Scale. By early afternoon on Saturday, September 8, a steady northeastern wind had picked up. By 5 p.m., the Bureau office was recording sustained hurricane-force winds. That night, the wind direction shifted to the east, and then to the southeast as the hurricane's eye began to pass over the island just west of the city. By 11 p.m., the wind was southerly and diminishing. On Sunday morning, clear skies and a 20 mph breeze off the Gulf of Mexico greeted the Galveston survivors. The storm continued on, and later tracked into Oklahoma. From there, it continued over the Great Lakes while still sustaining winds of almost 40 mph (as recorded over Milwaukee, Wisconsin) and passed north of Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September 12, 1900. From there it traveled into the North Atlantic where it disappeared from observations, after decimating a schooner fleet fishing off the coast of Newfoundland. Preparations On September 4, the Galveston office of the National Weather Bureau (as it was then called) began receiving warnings from the Bureau's central office in Washington, D.C., that a "tropical storm" had moved northward over Cuba. The Weather Bureau forecasters had no way of knowing where the storm was or where it was going. At the time, they discouraged the use of terms such as tornado or hurricane to avoid panicking residents in the path of any storm event. Conditions in the Gulf of Mexico were ripe for further strengthening of the storm. The Gulf had seen little cloud cover for several weeks, and the seas were as warm as bathwater, according to one report. For a storm system that feeds off moisture, the Gulf of Mexico was enough to boost the storm from a tropical storm to a hurricane in a matter of days, with further strengthening likely. Weather Bureau forecasters believed the storm would travel northeast and affect the mid-Atlantic coast. "To them, the storm appeared to have begun a long turn or 'recurve' that would take it first into Florida, then drive it northeast toward an eventual exit into the Atlantic." Cuban forecasters adamantly disagreed, saying the hurricane would continue west. One Cuban forecaster predicted the hurricane would continue into central Texas near San Antonio. Early the next morning, the swells continued despite only partly cloudy skies. Largely because of the unremarkable weather, few residents heeded the warning. Few people evacuated across Galveston's bridges to the mainland, and the majority of the population was unconcerned by the rain clouds that began rolling in by mid-morning. Isaac Cline claimed that he took it upon himself to travel along the beach and other low-lying areas warning people personally of the storm's approach. These reports by Cline and his brother, Galveston meteorologist Joseph L. Cline, have been called into question in recent years, as no other survivors corroborated these accounts. In fact, Cline's role in the disaster is the subject of some controversy. Supporters point to Cline's issuing a hurricane warning without permission from the Bureau's central office; detractors (including author Erik Larson) point to Cline's earlier insistence that a seawall was unnecessary and his belief that an intense hurricane could not strike the island.